Pay for use

Self Service

Cloud computing services

Cloud-based applications—or software as a service (SaaS)—run on distant computers “in the cloud” that are owned and operated by others and that connect to users’ computers via the Internet and, usually, a web browser.

Platform as a service provides a cloud-based environment with everything required to support the complete lifecycle of building and delivering web-based (cloud) applications—without the cost and complexity of buying and managing the underlying hardware, software, provisioning and hosting.

Cloud computing deployment models

Public clouds are owned and operated by companies that use them to offer rapid access to affordable computing resources to other organisations or individuals. With public cloud services, users don’t need to purchase hardware, software or supporting infrastructure, which is owned and managed by providers.

Many businesses are using software-as-a-service (SaaS) delivered from the public cloud for applications ranging from customer resource management (CRM)—like Salesforce.com—to transaction management and data analytics.

A private cloud is owned and operated by a single company that controls the way virtualised resources and automated services are customised and used by various lines of business and constituent groups. Private clouds exist to take advantage of many of cloud’s efficiencies, while providing more control of resources and steering clear of multi-tenancy.

A hybrid cloud uses a private cloud foundation combined with the strategic use of public cloud services. The reality is a private cloud can’t exist in isolation from the rest of a company’s IT resources and the public cloud. Most companies with private clouds will evolve to manage workloads across data centres, private clouds and public clouds—thereby creating hybrid clouds.

Evolving to a hybrid cloud strategy will allow companies to keep critical line of business applications and sensitive data in a traditional data centre environment or private cloud, while also taking advantage of public cloud resources like SaaS for the latest applications and IaaS for elastic, economical virtual resources to scale.

The key factor for hybrid cloud success

The ability to efficiently and securely manage the combination of public and private cloud services as a single unified computing environment is the key capability to fully taking advantage of the cloud—and it’s where the IBM SmartCloud excels.